


slay me all you want

by swu



Series: maybe (in another universe) [4]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fusion, Enthusiastically Consensual Blood Drinking, F/F, Fluff (with Fangs!), slayer!Shaw, vampire!Root
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5281154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swu/pseuds/swu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Root was a vamp. Shaw slayed all day. Can I make it any more obvious? (Root wanted her. Shaw'd never tell. Secretly she wanted Root as well.)</p><p>Buffy AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. be positive

“Root… what the hell are you doing here it's like 4am.” Shaw pulls her front door open wearily, lowering the stake she’d had raised. At the sight of the altogether too-gleeful smirk on Root’s lips, all the adrenaline that had practically launched Shaw out of bed at the sound of the knock at her door drains from her body.

“Can't a gal just stop by for a visit with her favorite Slayer every once in a while?”

Root ignores Sameen’s unamused glare and flashes her most charming smile. “Well aren't you going to invite me in?”

“No.” Shaw deadpans.

“You aren't still mad about that little thing, are you?” Root asks with an exaggerated pout.

“Oh, lit- _little_ thing—you mean when you snuck into my apartment while I was sleeping, tasered me, and kidnapped me?”

Root shrugs innocently. If anything she looks proud. “Well it's not like I _ate_ you or anything! Well……… not—”

“ _Root_.” To anyone else on the planet, the warning in Shaw’s voice would be enough to send them running for the hills, but Root only seems to take it as encouragement.

“Come on, that's gotta count for something, right?” God, Root’s eyes look like they came straight out of a Disney movie. It’s like trying to say no to Bambi.

Fuck her, that’s _so_ playing dirty.

“I’m still not inviting you in.”

“The sun's coming up soon.” Root laces her voice with syrup. “You're not really going to let a girl burn right here on your doorstep, are you?”

“Really, Root?” Shaw almost laughs. “ _That's_ what you're gonna go with? We're in an apartment building. And anyway that was lame, even for you.” Root should have stuck with the Bambi thing. She never knows how to quit pushing when she’s ahead, it’s almost endearing…………… fuck… Shaw’s going to blame that one on 4am.

Root huffs. “I know… But I'm hungry,” she whines. “I know you have blood bags in your fridge. I helped you _steal_ those blood bags in your fridge. So technically they're like… half _my_ blood bags.”

Rolling her eyes, Sameen just turns and walks away from the open door without another word.

She comes back with a blood bag in her hand and holds it out for Root. “Here,” she says, shaking her head with a sigh.

Root lights up.

“This is just because I don't want you flipping out and eating someone by accident,” Shaw adds quickly. “Don't get used to it. This blood is for medical emergencies, you know that.”

“ _I_ have a medical emergency, doctor—”

Shaw rolls her eyes again and closes the door in Root's face.

 

**…**

 

Three hours later, when Shaw leaves her apartment to meet Reese and Finch in the subway, she finds Root sitting on the floor of the hallway outside her apartment, back against the wall. She’s still nursing the blood bag, like a kid with a juice box.

Sameen rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Alright, come on.” Root clambers up immediately at the slight jerk of Sameen’s chin. “We'll take the tunnels.”

Root falls into step next to her, practically bouncing.

“Goddamn it, I shouldn't have given you B-pos I forgot that shit makes you hyper as hell.”

“I don't seem to remember you complaining last time I had some before we—”

“One of these days I really am going to stake you.”

“Mmm… can’t wait.”


	2. shaw comma root and

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look it up: **"shaw, root and"**
> 
> _noun_
> 
>   1. they who fuck a lot in cemeteries.
> 


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really didn't set out to write Root and Shaw fucking in a cemetery, this was a total accident.
> 
>  **warnings:** mild violence, pain kink, blood kink, blood drinking. (I mean, it's them and Root's a vampire…)

Five in one night. Not breaking any records, but not a bad night’s work if Shaw does say so herself.

She stretches briskly. Her heart rate’s barely elevated and it doesn’t take much effort for her to even out her breathing. It’s disappointing, though that’s not unusual these days. Nothing seems to be enough to satisfy the restlessness, the _boredom_ , that’s settled deep in her muscles, but she’s gotten used to it at this point. Just when she’s ready to call it a night, she turns around and—

“Jesus _fuck_ Root, will you stop doing that?”

The stake in Shaw’s hand is halfway to Root’s chest before she’d even consciously registered her presence.

“What?” Root asks, thoroughly unconcerned about the stake hovering inches away from her heart. Her voice chimes way too brightly through the 2am murk blanketing the cemetery. “I was just out for a walk and I thought you might need some backup on patrol tonight.”

“Right,” Shaw deadpans. “And that’s why you’re so prepped for action that you’re vigilantly snacking on- seriously? A _candy apple_?” She’s about to withdraw her stake but decides instead to press the tip gently into Root’s sternum, quirking her eyebrow as if this proves her point.

“Why, you hungry sweetie?”

For a split second Shaw’s eyes drift down to where her stake meets Root’s chest.

God, yes. “No.”

“I don’t mind sharing. From where I’m standing it looks like you’re due to eat.” At that last word Root raises her apple into the few inches of space between them and takes a bite, lips pressed teasingly against its syrup-coated skin. She lets some juice drip down her chin before sucking it in with a loud slurp. “I know _I_ worked up an appetite just watching you. Though,” Root pauses, tilting her head. Her lips, still glistening deep red, peel into a grin. “That’s not exactly surprising. Watching you slay does always make me… hungry.”

Sameen narrows her eyes at Root, but when her gaze drops down to Root’s mouth she doesn’t even try to hide the tiny smile pulling at the corner of her own. “I could eat,” she replies evenly.

Slowly dragging the point of her stake up to Root’s neck, she grabs the stick holding the apple with her other hand. Sameen opens her mouth to take a bite, but just as Root’s lips part with a tiny intake of breath, Shaw pries the apple out of her slackening grip and carelessly drops it to the ground. Root’s eyes don’t leave Shaw’s. She swallows, fighting the urge to lick her own lips as Shaw leans in to do it for her.

At the last second, Shaw suddenly jerks her head backward, eyes wide and apprehensive. Root blinks, brow furrowed, as Shaw points at her glazed lips with the stake.

“That’s not blood is it?”

Root immediately relaxes and just smiles again, exhaling with a light laugh. “ _Root_ ,” Shaw warns, still glaring. (Let’s just say it’s not an unfounded concern on Shaw’s part.) 

“That had better not be blood, Root, or I swear to fucking god—”

(It’s not blood)

Root ducks her head around the stake, ignoring the sharp sting of wood clipping the side of her neck, and presses her lips to Shaw’s. Almost on instinct, Sameen pulls Root’s bottom lip between her teeth and Root smirks slightly around the groan she feels escape Shaw’s throat.

It’s sticky and thick and almost intoxicating; the sugar hits Shaw’s tongue and shoots straight down to her groin and _fuck_ Root was right. She wants to taste more of Root, all of Root, and she knows she’s getting sloppy in her desperation but she can’t bring herself to care because fuck if Root isn’t grasping at her just as hungrily.

They might have been playing their usual little game before, but whatever semblance of control either of them might have had has slipped away. Shaw drags her mouth along Root’s jawline to settle at the bloody gash on her neck, licking it firmly before sinking her teeth into the flesh around it.

And okay maybe there’s something to be said for blood after all because, _god_ , as Shaw runs her tongue along the length of the cut she can feel herself shiver. She almost thinks she can taste the wood where it sliced so easily through Root’s skin and goddamn it she kind of does want to stake Root, she wants to feel the wood sink into her flesh, and that’s probably a metaphor for something, some Freudian shit, because she knows that she doesn’t actually want to stake her, she knows the threats in their little routine are basically just foreplay for them at this point but fuck who gives a shit because fuck fuck _fuck_ forget stakes, why is she thinking about stakes when Root’s fingers are where they are and she’s sure Root can feel how wet she is through her jeans as she’s grinding against her and– Shaw involuntarily lets out a gasp. Immediately, almost punitively, she redoubles her efforts to devour Root by the throat.

“That’s supposed to be my move, sweetie,” Root teases, even as she tilts her head to further expose her neck. Shaw can feel Root’s laugh vibrate against her lips and it feels like it’s vibrating somewhere else. She sucks harder.

“Shut up,” she growls into Root’s skin.

Root smirks and runs her hands up Shaw’s torso. She gets a good brisk grope in, but then abruptly presses the heel of her palm against Shaw’s sternum and shoves.

The loud crack of Shaw’s body slamming into a large headstone cuts through the silence of the cemetery. Or it may have been the crack of the stone fracturing. Root watches for a second as the beautifully carved angel sitting atop the marker topples to the ground.

“Oops.”

God, Shaw knows she always says she’s never doing this again but _fuck_ , if you could feel the shockwaves echoing down her spine you really wouldn’t be able to blame her. There’s not much that can knock the wind out of her anymore, not much that can touch her at all, what with the “Chosen One” and Slayer strength and everything. These days, she already starts losing interest mid-slay; at this point, even a whole nest of demons or vamps fails to stir up a single lick of adrenaline. Nothing seems to be able to hurt her anymore, which is, of course, a good thing for her job, as she tries to constantly remind herself. But it’s just too easy.

Shaw wants for someone to finally hurt her again, for someone to even be able to. For someone to _touch_ her, to reach through the Slayer and close their fist around Sameen. She wants to feel her muscles burn again, to feel that ache that penetrates to her bones, to feel her blood pumping through her veins and spilling, hot and _alive_ , onto her skin. To feel anything at all.

As she watches Root stalk toward her, she _can_ feel it. Everything. She presses her shoulder blades back into cold marble and lets it wash over her—the swell of her chest, the swell of her heart as it thrums against her ribcage, the swell of endorphins and adrenaline expanding through her body and out to her limbs until every inch of her skin is humming. She yanks Root forward by the lapels of her jacket and Root happily obliges, ramming her body so hard into Shaw’s that they both feel the collision echo back off the stone.

Nothing even comes close, Shaw thinks as Root grabs both her wrists in one hand and wrenches them upward, slamming them into the stone above her head. Root presses herself flush against Shaw, long limbs enveloping her, swallowing her. Their legs entwine automatically, thighs locking together and pulling them closer, closer. They squeeze until their bones paint deep bruises across each other’s bodies.

This was inevitable, probably—Shaw falling back into Root again and again—seeing as there’s not a single other being on this planet who can keep up with her. Well, no one that she’s not duty-bound to stake on sight, at least. And as much as Shaw hates to admit it, Root’s proven herself trustworthy enough that she no longer falls under that category. The fact that Root’s the only fuck she’s ever had who’s been able to leave an impression (Root leaves a few, usually, blooming in her wake), well that’s something Shaw doesn’t really have a problem admitting. Not when she can feel Root’s breath hot in her ear and one hand bruising her wrists while the other unbuttons her pants. Root is fucking fantastic in bed (or up against a gravestone, maybe inside a mausoleum later). That’s just a fact and there’s no point in denying it.

Actually, Shaw reasons, it’s not really saying so much about Root as it is about the dearth of viable options that are available to her. It’s really out of boredom is what it is—sometimes it almost feels like they’re the last two people on the face of this planet. Shaw may be the Slayer, but she’s still human and she has needs. And- well actually Root’s _not_ human, but Shaw knows she has needs too, and oh _fuck_ she can feel those needs, firm and demanding, sliding underneath her jeans and finally _finally_ sinking into her.

Root’s body isn’t cold. Shaw had been surprised to discover this when they’d first met. She’d been slaying vamps for a while already, but they never really survived long enough between the “Oh shit, it’s the Slayer!” and the turning into dust for Shaw to pick up on those sorts of things. But she noticed them in Root. Root made sure of that. Sometimes Root’s skin seems paper-thin, almost translucent, but when Shaw feels it against hers, it’s firm and unyielding, as perfectly smooth as the polished alabaster at Shaw’s back. Root doesn’t generate her own body heat, but she does absorb it from her surroundings—in this case, her surroundings being Shaw. And Shaw is _hot_. (No really, it’s the Slayer metabolism. Shaw generates heat like a furnace.)

Root groans when she feels Shaw’s heat engulf her fingers, feels Shaw’s sweat on her skin, feels Shaw’s warmth spread through her. The ability to sweat isn’t something anyone would normally think they’d miss, but Root misses it. She breathes in the smell of it. (Breathing is something she doesn’t strictly need to do anymore either, but the reflex is still there.) She drinks in the sex and sweat and Shaw until her lungs are full of nothing but Sameen, and for a second Root can almost forget what she is. They’re surrounded by death, silent and still and cold. They’re the only things moving for miles, and Root feels Shaw everywhere around her, so warm and alive that Root thinks she might drown in it. And when Shaw growls in Root’s ear to fuck her harder, as they stand here over the grave of some poor dead sap, Root almost forgets that she’s dead too.

Almost.

When Root starts fucking her in earnest, fingers practically lifting her off the ground with each thrust, Shaw slams her eyes shut and slams her head back into the stone. Root’s eyes lock onto Shaw’s neck, all sweat and sinew and overstrung tendons, and she can feel the pulse in Shaw’s carotid like it’s her own. It calls to her most primal instinct, to the monster inside her, that _is_ her.

She can never truly forget what she is.

It's elemental, the pull between them. Even as Root feels Shaw clench, hot and desperate, around her fingers, she's not so naively romantic as to believe that _that_ point of contact is what draws them together. This thing between them that feels bigger, heavier, than anything either of them has ever experienced is not _love_ or lust or anything so mundanely human. It’s a rule, a law of nature written into the mythic foundation of the world they inhabit, and all it spells is death. As unlikely as it seems, they’ve both forgotten that fact, somewhere along the way: that they were built, destined, to destroy one another.

Despite Shaw’s continued threats of staking Root or snapping her neck or tying her to a tree to leave her out for the sun, at some point she started to trust her and they both know it. She trusts Root so much that she hadn’t even registered just how vulnerable she’d left herself. So much that when she finally does realize it, when her eyes flutter open to find Root staring with unbridled thirst at the artery throbbing just beneath her skin, all she does is stare right back. She catches Root’s eye and tips her head further back. The movement is so slight that it easily could have gotten lost in the rhythm of Root's body colliding with hers. But it doesn’t. It’s an invitation (maybe a challenge, maybe a plea, Shaw’s not sure) and Root feels it ringing through her entire body, a Pavlovian bell that pulls her forward by the teeth.

Her mouth is on Shaw in an instant, breath escaping in hot pants that seep through the firm pressure of her lips and wind warm gossamer strands around Shaw’s neck. Shaw feels Root’s face shift, gentle contours turning into angry ridges. The feral snarl that rips through Root with the transformation sends a current down Shaw’s whole body that almost buckles her knees.

When Shaw feels Root’s teeth sink into her neck, her knees do buckle. Root holds her up against the headstone, hands still steady and unyielding on her and inside her.

Root’s fangs are so sharp that the bite almost doesn’t hurt. They cleave Shaw’s flesh apart like it doesn’t even exist, like her skin is opening itself up for Root, and the sensation is so overwhelming that Shaw has to lean into the jagged edges of the fractured stone at her back to ground herself.

But then Root seals her lips around the wound.

And she sucks.

She sucks on Shaw’s neck in time with her thrusts into Shaw’s cunt, bleeding her out as she fills her up, and Shaw thinks she might die from the pleasure of it. (She might actually die, and that partly _is_ the pleasure of it). Root is a black hole built to devour, and Shaw is standing at her event horizon. Every nerve in her body is lit up, raw and exposed. Her whole world is sharp sharp sharp. Her fingertips start to tingle and soon her whole body feels like it’s on fire. She’s breathless and light-headed and she _knows_ it’s just her hypoxic brain, just the fact that her blood is pumping out from her heart and straight into Root, but it feels so good, it just feels so fucking _much_ everywhere inside her and around her, that all she can do is ride the high.

Shaw grinds into Root’s hand and presses into her bite, urging Root to take more and more of her because she knows she has more to give. She feels the Slayer power coursing through her body, kicked into overdrive by some autonomic self-preservation fight-or-flight response struggling fruitlessly against the ecstasy flooding her mind and body. She pushes her thigh into Root’s groin and feels Root’s moan ripple through her blood. She has never felt this fucking powerful.

You spend your days killing and you start to think that all you have to offer anybody is the business end of a stake, that the only thing you have inside you to give is death. Not that it bothers Shaw, the killing part. She’s good at it, she was born for it, and she knows she’s making the world a better place so who gives a shit how much blood is on her hands. But it does bore her, this whole destiny thing. It gets monotonous, being surrounded by so much death all the time, because, really, death is boring. It’s always the same, always so empty, always an ending. Shaw’s life is made up of nothing but endings, and sometimes she wonders whether it counts as living at all if endings are all she has.

But that isn’t all Shaw is, and as she nears the edge (of orgasm or unconsciousness, probably both) she knows this. Death isn’t all she has to offer, not to Root. Root, who _is_ dead but whose life never really ended, seems more alive to Shaw than Shaw herself has ever felt, full and endless where Shaw is nothing but empty. But Root—well, Root feels empty, too. She looks at Shaw and sees goodness and warmth and everything that she, by design, could never be. And so with each pulse, each thrust, they both feel the same drumbeat echo inside them and all either of them can hear is their blood singing _alive alive alive_.

Shaw dazedly realizes that her hands are no longer restrained above her head. At some point, Root had released her wrists in favor of grasping the back of her neck as she drinks. Shaw feels light, lighter than she’s ever felt. She wants desperately to hold on to that feeling, to this moment, but blackness starts to creep into edges of her vision and she knows she won’t be able to much longer.

She winds her fingers into Root’s hair, her other hand braced against Root’s back. Shaw clings to Root, pulls her closer. Root rides her and devours her with equal ferocity, dragging sharp gasps out of Shaw’s lungs each time she drags her fingertips out of her cunt. A drop of blood slips from the corner of Root’s mouth and cuts a scalding path across Shaw’s skin. When it reaches the hollow of her throat, Sameen comes apart.

It feels like her orgasm floods through her from everywhere at once, simultaneously rippling up from the base of her spine and surging outward from where Root’s fangs are still buried in her throat. Root tenses slightly when Shaw comes, freezing for a moment before she starts up again, a hard reboot. Shaw feels sure fingers stroking her through it, slow and firm inside her as she trembles around them.

Shaw’s whole body quakes, silent and breathless. Suddenly, the pressure at her neck ceases as Root wrenches herself off it. The abrupt release from the suction on her throat sends another crest through her right on the heels of the first. Shaw feels Root shift her free hand around to hold pressure on the bite, but Shaw’s flesh is already rapidly knitting itself back together and the bleeding has slowed to a trickle.

After a few moments, Shaw is finally able to open her eyes again. Root’s chest is still heaving and her mouth is twitching like it wants nothing more than to be back on Shaw, but her face is human again and the hunger in her eyes has been extinguished by overwhelming tenderness. Root’s eyes dart from Shaw’s face back down to the bloody mess of neck beneath her own slender fingers. Shaw would laugh if she had any breath left to do so. It always amuses her, how quickly this happens. Root looks like a baby fawn, all spindly limbs and almost palpable vulnerability and not a hint of the predator that occupied her space moments ago. From the naked terror on her face, you’d think she were the one bleeding from the carotid.

Shaw almost never sees Root like this. She might be the only one who ever has.

And Root is terrified. There’s only one thing in this world, really, that scares her and that’s this: Shaw bleeding out in her arms, in her jaws. Loss of control. Loss of herself. Loss of Sameen.

Every time, Root tells herself that she will never let herself feed on Shaw again. But somehow she can never remember the fear, not when Shaw gets that look in her eye. She can never remember how completely Shaw dismantles every vestige of control, every barrier she’s ever built to keep the monster in.

Control is what separates her from others of her kind, who live their (after)lives utterly at the mercy of their animal instincts, drunk on the hunt and the kill and the blood. But really, Root is no better than them. Because Root is always at Shaw’s mercy, always drunk on Shaw, drunk on the chase and the sex and the blood, so much that she can never remember the feeling that comes after. Root would _never_ take more than Shaw wanted to give, but sometimes she doesn’t know if the demon that shares her skin really _is_ her. She craves Shaw, every part of her in every way. The demon craves her too. 

Shaw watches as Root’s mind works frantically. Neither of them has moved. Root is still frozen in place, every muscle pulled taut, and Shaw rests boneless against her. Root wants to tear herself from Shaw; she wants to hold Shaw and never let go. She wants to lock the demon so far away it can’t touch anything; she wants to press herself against every inch of Shaw so Shaw won’t fall apart in her arms (or maybe so she won’t fall apart in Shaw’s).

Root opens her mouth to say something, maybe to apologize for almost letting herself go to far, maybe to ask if Shaw is okay or something else equally insufficient.

But Shaw just pulls Root into a surprisingly gentle kiss (gentle is all Shaw has right now). It tastes ferrous and honeyed and alive. Shaw already feels herself healing; the wound at her neck has stopped bleeding and her pulse grows steadily stronger as her body rebuilds itself with inhuman speed. She rolls her hips experimentally and clenches around Root’s fingers, still knuckle-deep in her pussy but motionless and hesitant with concern. As she starts lazily riding Root’s hand, she breathes into her mouth, “Fuck me, Root.”

Root relaxes into the rhythm of Shaw’s hips, resting her forehead against Shaw’s as they start to move together. She curls her fingers gently inside Shaw and presses the heel of her hand into Shaw’s clit, holding her more than anything else. Shaw sighs softly and Root wants to drink that sound in too. (She thinks she wants that sound more than she wants anything else, but she knows that’s not true.)

She slowly dips her head down to Shaw’s neck again, only this time she’s moving unbearably slowly, quivering with restraint. Her nostrils flare as she presses her mouth softly to the bite mark, but her movements remain gentle. Root laves the surrounding skin with the flat of her tongue and works her way in, washing away the smears of blood staining Shaw’s throat.

When the iron hits her tongue, Root feels it like a vice grip deep in her gut. It claws at her, trying to tear her insides out of her body, trying to rip the monster out of its cage. An almost silent whimper is all it does pull out of her, though. That’s all that Root will allow. She sinks into the taste (tantalizing, torturous), drawing it out so she can feel the pangs in her gut, each one a skewer through her inner demon.

Shaw slides her hands down Root’s torso, digging fingers into delicate hipbones. She pulls Root into her, thigh firm between Root’s. Her grip grows tighter as she urges Root to rock against her, more and more insistent until Root finally lets out a loud gasp. Her head snaps up and, when her gaze meets Shaw’s again, her breath hitches.

Shaw’s eyes are open wide, clear and sharp and cutting into Root. None of the hypovolemia- and orgasm-induced lethargy that colored her face minutes ago remains; all that’s left is an impish grin. Before Root can smile back, Shaw’s hand shoots up to capture her by the neck. Shaw squeezes once, and then sends them both crashing to the ground.

 

**…**

 

“I’m still hungry,” Shaw gripes as she tries to straighten out the disaster Root’s made of her clothes and hair, not to mention her neck. You know what, let’s not even go there. They both may be nigh invulnerable to anything but each other, but Shaw has yet to find a pair of jeans that can keep up. She turns up the collar of her coat in a thoroughly unsuccessful attempt to conceal the evidence of Root’s… affection.

Root has a matching, albeit significantly less gruesome, mark on her own neck, which she makes no effort at all to hide. Instead, she’s sat herself on the top of another headstone, legs crossed at the ankle and swinging freely as she watches Shaw fumble around like it’s the most riveting thing she’s ever seen. She starts lazily licking her hands in broad strokes like a cat, cleaning off the mixture of blood and come that they’re practically drenched in. She runs her tongue between her fingers and, still watching Shaw, smiles as she takes them into her mouth one by one.

(Five in one night. Not breaking any records, but not a bad night’s work if Root does say so herself.)

Sameen scans through the leaves and dirt for the stake she’d dropped somewhere between ravaging Root’s throat and Root ravaging hers. She scowls over at Root, because, well, it’s kinda her fault.

It’s completely her fault. Root should come with compensation for damages and maybe a warning label – hazardous to anything with tensile strength lower than Level IIIA ballistic armor standards. Sorry, Mr……… Wyndam-Price and loved ones. Shaw’s gonna make sure Root sends you a check to recompense for the _(entirely accidental and unforeseeable)_ destruction of his gravestone. Lightning, maybe? Yeah sure that’s believable enough.

Tucking the stake into the inside pocket of her coat, she turns on Root. “You did promise me food.”

“Well… I said you’d get to eat,” Root smirks. Shaw just keeps glaring at her expectantly. Root holds her stare for a second but quickly acquiesces, hopping down from her perch. “She says there’s a 24-hour diner two blocks from here.”

Shaw brightens. “Mmm, that could work.”

Sameen turns on her heel and starts walking away. After a moment she looks back to find Root still standing where she left her. “Well? You coming or not?”

A smug grin spreads wide across Root’s face as she quickly catches up and falls into step with Shaw. “Sameen, are you asking me out for our first morning-after breakfast?” she croons, leaning over to run both hands down Shaw’s arms. Shaw stiffens at the touch, but she doesn’t try to shrug Root off her.

“No,” Shaw asserts. “You just haven’t actually told me where this diner is yet.”

“Patience, Sam,” Root hums, but she’s already starting to direct Shaw bodily in the right direction.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, until Root stops abruptly, head tilted slightly to one side. She trots over to a large oak tree near the path, Shaw in tow, and reaches up into the branches, pulling down a thick knit scarf that she wordlessly wraps around Sameen’s neck.

“Wait, this is your scarf,” Shaw notices, confused. “Did you… stash it there? Have you been planning this? Fuck, Root, has the _Machine_ been planning this?”

Root just smiles adoringly and fluffs the scarf up a bit. “It’s always good to be prepared, Sameen.”

As she walks away, Root hears Shaw mutter under her breath, “Oh, that’s nice, you’re always prepared to maul me at any time, that’s really comforting.”

Shaw jogs to catch up with her, still grumbling. “You’re buying me whatever I want off the menu. And I don’t care if the sun comes up halfway through breakfast, too bad, you’re just going to have to crawl under the table until I finish.”

 _Oh, fuck._ Shaw groans before she’s even finished her sentence. Root’s face splits into a grin, all tooth and utter delight, and somehow it looks even hungrier than her vamp face.

“That can be arranged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to get Root to say that slaying always makes her hungry and horny but tragically I couldn't get it to work in her voice. Sorry this was not really super sexy and turned out instead to be mostly waxing philosophical about death.


End file.
